i know i’m prolly really dumb to be asking this but i had a question… :biggrin:
my friend was telling me that if the iraqis do set fire to all their oil wells, that means that their oil will be finished forever as the oil will all just burn and burn and finish.
but i dont really get it…i mean r the oil wells like wells in the ground that are filled with a limited amount of oil? i thought the unrefined petroleum was there in limited amounts and needed to be pumped out…
does setting fire to the oil wells really mean that iraq will then lose its natural wealth of oil forever?
what is the significance of the whole oil wells issue and setting fire to them?
The media says... the Iraqi's may have opened a pipe and created a slick...on the thinking that the smoke from the burning would blind U.S. bombers...
In Kuwait..I suppose they did it out of anger. Took 8 months to put the fires out..costing millions/billions of dollars.
U.S. government point is that the oilfelds belong to the Iraqi's..and the profits of them will help pay to rebuild the country, and help pay the 80 billion dollar estimated debt for war.
And..yes..U.S. economy is based on oil revenues. Yes, we need oil to get to work on Monday-Friday to buy groceries for our kids. Don't you?
Remember that only the oil at the surface, in contact with oxygen can burn. Burning oil wells only destroys a couple million dollars worth of oil - maybe just a couple hundreds of millions of dollars of oil, depending on how long the oil burns for. The main difficulty it creates is that extinguishing the fire is difficult, and it will stop anyone who controls the wells from gaining revenue from them for several months at least.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday the federal government will seize $1.4 billion in Iraqi assets frozen since the first Gulf War, and use the money for humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Iraq.
The announcement by Treasury Secretary John Snow came after President Bush Thursday issued an executive order confiscating “non-diplomatic Iraqi government assets in the United States” and authorizing the Treasury Department to “marshal the assets and to use the funds for the welfare of the Iraqi people.”
In a statement, Bush said he had “determined that such use would be in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States.”
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by AvgAmericanGirl: *
......U.S. government point is that the oilfelds belong to the Iraqi's..and the profits of them will help pay to rebuild the country, and help pay the 80 billion dollar estimated debt for war.
[/quote]
Bravo Bravo.
You go to a neighbor's house, you smash him with a hammer, then take him to hospital, take his wallet to pay for hospital bills, to pay for your transporting him to hospital, all the food you had to eat during his stay at hospital, then you keep his wallet in your control so any "recovery" will be paid by his wallet. You also keep a lot for your comission for all this service. And, also you own the hospital.
Bravo bravo.
[quote]
And..yes..U.S. economy is based on oil revenues. Yes, we need oil to get to work on Monday-Friday to buy groceries for our kids. Don't you?
[/quote]
Then why does America not admit that the War is for Oil? Do you loot your neighbor's house to feed your kids?
[quote]
And also to make plastics...
[/QUOTE]
The same plastic they have been deprived of for more than a decade?
You guys need to read a little more on the cost of this war. It has already cost up to 20 billion USD and with time the tag will go up. According to the recent study by Stanford, when all dust will settle, it will cost up to 1.1 trillion USD.
Even if these 1.4 billion USD were in liquid money & not 'dispersed assets' ... it's not even enough for a weeks worth of ration to the troops based in Iraq.
The last thing Bush wants is to get the war tag grow bigger. Bush Sr. got it all going for him, with Saudis & others paying most of the war cost but still he got the blame for making American Tax payers pay for a war which was not perceived to be necessary. This time around with not many helping Bush Jr. will have a hard time convincing the congress & the public that it's all cool. No wonder in the second day of the war the ground forces are already in Iraq, unlike the last time where they wasted 20 million dollar rocket on a 2 dollar cotton made military installation.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Stu: *
If this was about Oil, why didn't the US take control of Iraq's reserves after the 91 gulf war?
What other solution existed to end this stalemate?
[/QUOTE]
American companies are already begging for contracts regarding the Iraqi Oil.
Kinda strange that such news are not very common to you.
Oil fields being brought into Americas control as well as the western part of Iraq being invaded first to ensure safty of Israel.
Blaiming that pro Al-Qaida areas (north iraq) being attacked by Allied forces....etc.
Are these not all signs of what they really want?
Or is it so hard to understand?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Stu: *
If this was about Oil, why didn't the US take control of Iraq's reserves after the 91 gulf war?
What other solution existed to end this stalemate?
[/QUOTE]
If it was about Iraq's gassing kurds, owning WMD, owning chemical weapons supplied by US, why didn't US disarm Iraq in 1991?
Step by step. When the price for that war was already paid, there was no need to do any further from the contract b/w US and Kuwait.... i.e. liberate Kuwait from Saddam.
